- AdFreak wraps up the year with its list of the Ten Most Wanted stories of the year, the stories they most enjoyed covering in 2006. From Folger's Happy Mornings to IKEA's dog penis to TBWA's toilet bandit to Bank America's bastardization of U2, it's all there for your enjoyment.

- TBWA\Chiat\Day and Firstborn have created a virtual road trip site for JBL that lets visitors get inside the world of a groupie.

- Shannon from Glossy received a very inventive Advent calendar Christmas card from ACLC. Each of the days on the calendar for the month of December are stages in the development of a campaign. Nice.

- Oh look. An online press kit for Paramount Home Video's The Last Kiss.

- Sean John (Diddy, P. Diddy, whatever) has launched a campaign in Canada to raise awareness of the many counterfeiters who rip off his brand.

- Mobile content company Airborne Entertainment is cuddling with Marc Ecko in a deal that will bring the Ecko brand to ringtones, ringbacktones, message alerts, screensavers and wallpapers to cell phones the world over.

- While the Federal Trade Commission agreed with Commercial Alert that some word of mouth marketing that does not disclose the brand can be deceptive, the Commission declined (pdf) to heed Commercial Alert's request (pdf) the Commission launch a formal investigation into the practice.

OK. We'll say this one more time. Are all you marketers listening? Good. There's a big difference between a teaser campaign and one that maliciously hides it's purpose for long periods of time. And, on top of that, denies its true mission when it's found out. What the hell are we talking about? Take, for example, the teaser billboard. It's usually some irreverent play on words and witty imagery that's then reveled to be part of a larger campaign a couple weeks later. Now take fake blogs. You've heard of them. Edelman knows all about them. They are the things marketers seem to think are the holy grail of this new social media thing. Let's get down with our customers. Let's "join the conversation." Trouble is, a fake blog - one that pretends (badly) to be all hip hop on our ass - is like an idiot that shows up at a black tie event wearing American Eagle cargo shorts and a t-shirt. The natural reaction to that is, "Who the fuck is that idiot?"

Oh the horror! AdPunch points to recent news Zara Phillips, the granddaughter of Queen Elizabeth II, has appeared in a Land Rover ad wearing a white gown covered in mud with the headline, "Beautifully Poised." Nice ad but it's apparently against royal protocol. Her appearance is part of sponsorship deal with Land Rover which sponsored her during her recent competition in the World Equestrian Games where she won a gold.

While the Queen might be angry, many other are just fine with her land Rover appearance. Labour Glascow East MP Ian Davison said, "Miss Phillips is to be commended for making her own way in the world. If she is cashing in on her success as a sporting star as other people do, then she is making something of herself."

Is this the end of royalty as we know it? Or is this just the natural way of things? Those in the U.K., please enlighten us.

OK, so like ya know brands love to do ads with celebs because, like, it's really hard to pass up the opportunity to hang with someone like Scarlett Johansson, ya know? Besides, it's much easier to just whip together a celebrity photo shoot than it is to, say, come up with an actual advertising strategy. Look at BBDO's Pepsi work. All celebrities all the time. Still the number two soda. Oh fuck it, Scarlett's nice to look at so we're shuttin' our mouth now. More Scarlett here.

Considering this Julie Roehm/Walmart saga is getting 9/11-style coverage we're not going to dive much into it at this very moment but you have to admit all this lychee martini-parsing, who-slept-with-who, who-paid-for-dinner crap brings back vivid memories of slut rumours and peer ostracization on the quad. AdScam rants beautifully on the latest goings-on in the made-for-TV drama. - Contributed by Angela Natividad

It's always interesting to watch people do strange shit with their bodies but this video is especially interesting because it brings a nouveau twist to the time-honored art of vinyl ripping, a method that's slowly vanishing with digital deejays and MP3 blending.

Is there a creative future in video ripping for the egocasting generation? Maybe. Credit goes to Advertising for Peanuts for bringing it to our attention. - Contributed by Angela Natividad

Lots of liaisons happen around holiday time. The Rumpus Room, Young Guns and some other noob-oriented groups get together for Make a Big Noise, a competition to promote fair trade worldwide. Anyone under 30 can enter.

Here is the requisite MySpace. We like Rumpus Room, we like Young Guns and we like their concept but the MySpace sucks. We're sure they know that though. Considering fair trade and all that good stuff are causes now embraced by the tech-savvy, super-trendy, organic smoothie-sipping post-Google crowd, we look forward to seeing what kind of entries slip out of the woodwork. - Contributed by Angela Natividad

It seems silicone breast implants and Scientology are two topics Entertainment Weekly would rather leave alone lest it spark fury among the Hollywood elite that makes its existence possible or raise the ire of Tom Cruise's lawyer Betram Fields. The magazine rejected a TDA Advertising & Design-created campaign for outerwear company Cloudveil Mountain Works' new Hollywood skiwear line. The campaign was intended to reach Hollywood elite during the Sundance Film Festival and other events held at Aspen and Vail ski resorts.

One ad pictures a mock Aspen street sign, stating "Silicone implants begin to freeze at -10˚ Fahrenheit." Additional text, underneath inset photos of three Cloudveil jackets, read: "We'd like to remind you Hollywood types to dress accordingly." A second ad showed a Cloudveil jacket over copy reading: "We wanted celebrities visiting ski towns to know about us. It was either run an ad in this magazine, or become scientologists." See them both here and here.

Deft Creative Ltd.'s, awkwardly sloganed "Dexterous of hand and inventive of mind," demonstrates neither dexterity (though they try) nor inventiveness (no effort here) with this dull leaping-Rudolph ski game. The object is to beat the furthest leap and we're ensured by the agency guy that "All scores on the score board ARE beatable." Glad he made the effort to bang that in because otherwise we were going to lose sleep over it.

The game is tricky in that it involves holding down your left mouse button and releasing when you feel Rudolph has built enough momentum. Then you let loose and do it all over again. It's a cross between the high school pole jump and a Friday night spent half-heartedly masturbating. - Contributed by Angela Natividad

We like the way this Grey-created campaign for travel agency Cruise Ship Centers integrates with everyday life and plays into the daydreams we all have about that perfect vacation we'd rather be on than the boring meeting we're sitting in or the monotonous work we're in the middle of. Each image in the campaign from the cruise ship-like iron to the leaning tower of Pisa-looking stack of cocktail glasses to the Alaskan iceberg-looking ice cream cone to the Caribbean island-looking coffee spill masterfully enables the dream. The ads are simple with minimal copy and they do their job beautifully. See all four ads here.